Post navigation

Asexual & Aromantic: What It’s Like In The 21st Century

Two terms, which usually are followed after the other. Asexual and Aromantic. Two words that not many people have heard of. And to the people who have and to the people who are the world is some how different for them. It’s harder.

Someone who is aromantic and asexual feels little to no sexual and romantic attraction. SHOCKER! These people exist! And I’m one of them.

Okay but what is it like living in a world that is so codependent on sex and romance? It’s difficult I’m not going to lie to you, but it’s manageable and liveable. Within a world where mainstream media can give us access to anything, the post popular and seen things relate back to sex or romance. TV Shows, music, movies, you name it there’s something within there that relates back to either of these two things. But what if you don’t experience it? It’s a pain. You can never seem to get away from someone who is talking about their love and/or sex life, even if it’s a programme or someone you know in real life. The conversation always comes up. It comes up in family conversations, in friendship conversations. Everyone wants to know the gossip about your love and sex life, which I have never really truly understood. For most of the ace and/or aro community some of us are sex repulsed or romance repulsed and having it thrown into our faces in pretty much every situation we face doesn’t make it easy on us. But do you hear us complaining? No.

The phrase “but you can’t live without sex and/or romance” is one that annoys me greatly because 1) you don’t have to have sex and/or romance to be happy & 2) if you go without either it’s not the end of the world. There are more things in the world that you need than sex and romance (like oxygen for example). Yes for you it’s nice to have these things but some people would rather not.

Allosexuals (people who experience sexual attraction) look at asexuals as a broken toy. They want to fix us. Their way of trying to “fix” us is by saying things that make us feel worse. For example: “You won’t know until you try it”, “you haven’t found the right person yet,” etc etc. Being asexual and aromantic is completely normal just like being straight, it’s just not what people see as the “norm” because of the way society looks upon sex and romance. Also asexuality is not celibacy! People who participate in celibacy have a choice, whereas people who are asexual do not have a choice. This is who they are.

The way I see it is, how is the best way to put it, you like coffee, the person to your right like tea, the person to your left likes hot chocolate, and the person sitting in front of you doesn’t like any type of hot drink what’s so ever. Do you judge them on their choice of hot drink? Probably not. So why do you instantly judge asexual and aromantics who come out to you or tell you that they don’t participate in sex or romance. Most of us are happy just the way the we are. Personally I don’t feel like I’m missing out on anything.

What we would like is for people to leave us be, not judge us, and have more representation in the media. That’s all. We’ll leave you alone if you leave us alone. I really do hate the stereotype that asexuals and aromantics are childlike and/or are lonely because most of the time we are not. Yes we have our community jokes, like with the cake and the dragons, because it’s a way of us expressing who we are.

There’s a lot of problems when it comes to “coming out” as aro/ace because where most people haven’t heard of either terms they believe it’s made up or that we’re just scared to do either. When it most cases it’s not the truth. And then because of this and the way society is aro/aces feel pressured in certain situations. Aro Aces have existed for centuries if you look closely it’s just the world has decided to ignore that we exist because it is not seemed as “normal”. Well guess what allos sex and romance isn’t a life or death situation. You can live without it. This is the new “normal”: asexuality and aromanticism exist it’s time to get used to it.